Our nation is in the midst of an unbelievable transformation - a struggle not seen in any of our lifetimes.
In response to this transformation - James Hoffa told a crowd of workers gathered for a Labor Day rally that it’s time to go to war - take a look:
We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: the war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they've got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war...
President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march....
Everybody here's got to vote. If we go back and we keep the eye on the prize, let's take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong!
And, of course, the right-wing echo chamber went absolutely nuts.....
Can there be any doubt Hoffa, maybe Obama, been thinking of the Republicans as their bitches ever since he was elected? ... I hope before this is all over Hoffa has to go hide in Italy someplace.
And while battling to save his state from burning to ashes Rick Perry took time to put in his two cents....
Kilmeade: When somebody says something like that, do you say that’s appropriate, inappropriate, par for the course? What’s your reaction?
Perry: Well, you wouldn’t be bleeping if it was appropriate.
And of course, Glenn Beck's sarcasm wasn't lost on anyone....
He’s not inciting violence here, is he? ‘Cause I only thought the Right did that. I have seen this kind of rhetoric before, you know. Can’t we all just come together and find a new tone? And who better to find that tone than someone with the last name Hoffa?
And of course - this wouldn't be complete without a shout out from the Fox and Friends couch.....
Gretchen Carlson: It was very serious language.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: The American people are focused on job creation.
Gretchen Carlson: Well, let me hear.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Are you kidding me? Really?
Gretchen Carlson: No, I'm not.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: You take a walk with me through some of the tea party rallies that you.
Gretchen Carlson: Here is what the President said back in January. The President said, only a more civil and honest public discourse...
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Excuse me, I love to answer your question.
Gretchen Carlson: ...can help us face up to the challenges of our nation. The President called...
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: That's right. And I've called some civility as well.
Gretchen Carlson: ...for civil and honest discourse. Now, the White House is saying nothing.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Right.
Gretchen Carlson: And as head of the DNC, I think a lot of people would love to hear a response to 'taking sons of a bitches out'.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Really, Gretchen, how many times have you called out the coarse language at tea party rallies on this network.
Gretchen Carlson: Plenty.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Almost never.
Gretchen Carlson: Plenty.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: I've never heard you or any other of your anchors call out course language.
Gretchen Carlson: I sit in the middle on the couch, I'm fair and balanced, Debbie.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz: call out coarse language.
Gretchen Carlson: What is your response?
The couch of "fair and balanced"?!?!?!
Really, Gretchen?!?!?!
I'm impressed that she was able to keep a straight face as she said that.
But the point is that these outraged right-wingers have a clear agenda - to hide the fact that there already IS a class war going on in the United States.
As Warren Buffett put it back in 2006:
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning."
But the Right’s feigned outrage is rendered even more ridiculous thanks to a new report by Brad Friedman over at Mother Jones magazine who obtained an audio tape of a secret meeting of billionaires back in June in the mountains of Colorado.
What you’re about to hear is billionaire oil baron Charles Koch - the same guy who funds right-wing thinktanks and AstroTurf Tea Party groups - rally HIS soldiers - our nation’s oligarchs - behind a "mother of all wars" to be waged against President Obama - who Koch refers to as Saddam Hussein - take a listen:
Charles Koch: we have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we've got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country.
Again - that was billionaire Charles Koch calling President Obama "Saddam Hussein" - and urging his rich buddies to prepare for the "mother of all wars".
Later - Koch goes on to tell his troops to shell out millions of bucks toward that war effort - pocket change to most of the oligarchs in the room.
What Charles Koch is referring to is the billionaire's war against working people.
And it's this very same war - that James Hoffa spoke of yesterday and on my radio show today......
James Hoffa: There is a war on workers. Anybody who doesn't know about the war, I mean, they started the war and I'm saying, OK, somebody's going to have to, there's going to be a loser and a winner and we're going to be the winners. They got the money, we got the votes.
The battle-lines are being drawn - the billionaires are arming up - and Hoffa was urging working people to wake up and realize it.
It's a war against the New Deal - against the contract that our government made with all of us after World War 2 - that if we all worked hard and lived honorable lives - then we could achieve the American Dream of a comfortable life - we get the house - the car - the family - the vacations - the free education - and a comfortable retirement at a reasonable age.
This social contract held strong for 40 years in America - from the 30's to the 70's - and the middle-class thrived.
But the wealthiest among us felt threatened.
As the marketplace and the workplace opened more and more to minorities and women in the middle of the 20th century - and more and more Americans wanted in on this deal of a good middle class life - the "dream" - the billionaires saw their piece of the wealth pie leveling out.
They saw their massive fortunes growing - but not as fast as they'd like - as workers demanded better pay and better benefits.
If they wanted to see their empires grow, they had to renegotiate FDR's New Deal with the American people.
They needed to realign the American economy away from the middle-class where FDR and Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower positioned it - and give it back to the oligarchs.
They started this 30 years ago when Ronald Reagan busted up PATCO - the air traffic controllers union - and triggered a generation-long battle against labor unions.
Today - labor unions - of which one in three Americans USED to belong to during the 1950's - have largely disappeared with only one in ten Americans enjoying the protections of organized labor.
And as labor unions went into decline over the past few decades - so, too, did the middle class's share of wealth - dropping from close to 30% in the 1960's to about 10% today - as the billionaires gobbled up more and more money - so much so that just 400 families now have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
With Reagan, they were subtle about it.
They said they liked Social Security and Medicare, they even liked unions - they just wanted them protected.
But after 30 years of successfully drilling holes in the New Deal, now they are just openly bragging that FDRs New Deal is dead.
The new New Deal - Paul Ryan's New Deal - is pretty easily summed up in four words, that Republicans are constantly pushing in various forms of code using phrases like "personal responsibility" and "freedom".
These four words? - "You're on your own."
Paul Ryan's budget - what he calls the "Roadmap" - is that new contract that billionaires want to impose on the American people - a contract that renders the American dream obsolete and no longer rewards hard work with a good middle class lifestyle.
No Social Security - no Medicare - no labor unions - no free education - no healthcare - no vacations - no retirement until you're dead - no home - no car - nothing - unless you're willing to go in debt up to your eyeballs.
Why? Because the billionaires don't want to pay their share to make sure the rest of us have any semblance of economic security.
It's really just that simple.
If Republicans win the election of 2012, get used to the lifestyle of the working poor.
Luckily - so far Republicans only control the House of Representatives - and not the Senate or the White House - so Paul Ryan and his billionaire buddies' vision for America can't be fully realized... at least not yet.
Which is exactly why Charles Koch is asking his cabal of billionaires to cough up at least a million dollars each to prepare for - his phrase - "the mother of all wars" - the billionaires' quest to take over Congress and the White House next year.
These billionaires are just one election cycle - just one election - away from finishing off once and for all their 30-year-war against working people that had been kicked off and started by Ronald Reagan.
Just one election away from killing off FDR's New Deal - and replacing it with Paul Ryan's New Deal for billionaires.
James Hoffa knows what we're up against - he knows that Charles Koch isn't afraid to shell out millions of bucks to win this war.
So with Charles Koch and the oligarchs fully committed to this struggle - it’s time for the rest of us to wake up - and decide who’s side we’re on… the billionaires - or the rest of America.
That's The Big Picture.
